Northern Triangle worries about US threats to deport gang members

Following a lengthy mid-April meeting with US President Donald Trump to address the presence of violent Central American gangs in dozens of US cities, Attorney General Jeff Sessions warned gang members that they would be found and devastated. Meeting shortly after in El Salvador, Sessions’ colleagues, the attorneys general of the Northern Triangle of Central America, expressed concern about the possibility that undocumented migrants from the region, including gang members, could be massively deported from the US. In the US, where there are an estimated 10,000 mareros in 40 states and the District of Columbia, MS-13 has become a particular security nightmare, and the Trump administration has targeted it. Trump has described mareros as “animals,” and warned that they would be caught and deported. And at a gathering of the Attorney General’s Organized Crime Council, Sessions blamed the presence of mareros in the US on what he described as “an open border” and years of “lax immigration enforcement.” Sessions added, “MS-13 has been sending both recruiters and members to regenerate gangs that previously had been decimated, and smuggling members across the border as unaccompanied minors.”

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